{"id":27878,"date":"2020-06-18T07:57:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T02:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=27878"},"modified":"2020-06-18T07:57:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T02:27:13","slug":"ladakh-face-off-india-china-agree-to-de-escalate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=27878","title":{"rendered":"Ladakh face-off | India, China agree to de-escalate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar speaks to Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

India and China on Wednesday agreed not to escalate matters along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), following a conversation between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stark differences, however, remained in how both sides described the unprecedented events of June 15, and the clash that claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian soldiers in the worst violence along the border since 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the call, it was agreed that both sides would deal with the situation in a \u201cresponsible manner\u201d and \u201cneither side would take any action to escalate matters and instead, ensure peace and tranquillity as per bilateral agreements and protocols,\u201d the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) quoted Mr. Jaishankar as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"External
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar talks on phone as he leaves South Block in New Delhi on June 17, 2020.   | Photo Credit: PTI<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A statement issued by China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Beijing said both sides agreed \u201cto cool down the situation\u201d. \u201cThe two sides agreed to deal fairly with the serious events caused by the conflict in the Galwan Valley, jointly abide by the consensus reached at the military-level meetings of the two sides, cool down the situation on the ground as soon as possible, and maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas in accordance with the agreement reached so far between the two countries,\u201d said the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday\u2019s clash was reported to have been triggered by a dispute over the disengagement process that had been agreed to on June 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two statements also underlined serious differences remain over what happened on June 15. The MEA said Mr. Jaishankar \u201cconveyed the protest of the Government of India in the strongest terms\u201d and \u201cunderlined that this unprecedented development will have a serious impact on the bilateral relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian Minister said Chinese forces continued building activities in the Indian side of the LAC in violation of the agreement reached at the Corps Commander talks on June 6, and attacked Indian soldiers in a planned manner. He told Mr. Wang the Chinese forces went back on a commitment despite continuing dialogue throughout last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Chinese side sought to erect a structure in Galwan Valley on our side of the LAC,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile this became a source of dispute, the Chinese side took pre-meditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Minister accused India of \u201cdeliberately provoking\u201d the clash and \u201copenly breaking the consensus\u201d of June 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce the situation in the Galwan Valley had calmed down, the Indian front-line troops crossed the LAC again, and deliberately provoked and violently attacked the officers and soldiers who negotiated on the spot, leading to fierce physical clashes, resulting in casualties. This dangerous act of the Indian Army seriously violated the agreement reached between the two countries on the border issue and seriously violated the basic norms of international relations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MFA said he conveyed China\u2019s \u201cstrong protest\u201d and \u201cdemanded that the Indian side conduct a thorough investigation, severely punish those responsible for the incident, strictly control the frontline troops, and immediately stop all provocative actions to ensure that such incidents cannot occur again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also called on both sides to \u201cstrengthen the communication and coordination on the proper handling of the border situation through the existing channels such as the meeting mechanism between the special representatives of the Sino-Indian border and the meeting mechanism of the border defence force, so as to jointly maintain peace and tranquillity in the border area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian declined to provide details of Chinese casualties from Monday\u2019s clash, although reports have confirmed there were casualties on both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about China\u2019s casualties, Mr. Zhao said, \u201cI have stated that the Chinese and Indian border troops are now jointly dealing with relevant matters on the ground. I have nothing to add at the moment.\u201d Asked about the likelihood of further escalation, he said, \u201cFrom the Chinese side, we do not wish to see more clashes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China was unlikely to confirm the number of dead and injured, said M. Taylor Fravel, an expert on the Chinese military at MIT. \u201cI can think of no armed conflict involving China where it has released casualty figures publicly at the time of the conflict,\u201d he said. \u201cUsually, they are published years or decades later,\u201d he noted on Twitter, pointing out that casualties from the 1962 were only revealed for the first time in an internal history published in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, both the People\u2019s Daily, the Communist Party\u2019s official mouthpiece, and the PLA Daily, the Army\u2019s official paper, made no mention of the clash, although it marked the first combat casualties for the PLA possibly since a 1989 clash with Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clash was, however, discussed widely on Chinese social media. On the Twitter equivalent Sina Weibo, the China-India border clash topic had 1.05 billion views and 1,10,000 comments as of Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inputs from The Hindu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar speaks to Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. India and China on Wednesday agreed not to escalate matters along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), following a conversation between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Stark differences, however, remained in how both sides described the unprecedented events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}